Lucie Archer is off to Barcelona to play hockey for 10 days at the end of July. 

That’s not bad for someone who gave up the sport for some 12 years and has only been back playing recreationally for the past three years or so.

What makes it even more impressive is the standard of hockey she will be playing in what is sure to be a very sunny Spain, because she will be representing Wales in the Masters World Cup.

The 44-year-old mum-of-four, who these days plays for Gloucester City when time allows, will be playing in the over-40s category and while the aim is to have fun and do a bit of sightseeing, once on the pitch the hockey will be very serious.

And you wouldn’t expect anything else from Lucie Archer who was a very, very good hockey player back in the day, good enough in fact to win 25 caps for her country, a country she qualified to play for through her dad Dusan.

And Lucie, who played in the Masters Home Nations two years ago, won’t be short of friends on the trip either, because quite a few other players from the county will be playing including Gloucester’s Trevor and Emma Done, Lansdown’s Sarah-Jane Thompson, Gloucester goalkeeper Simon Thompson plus Amanda Ferebee, while Anton De Leeuw of Gloucester and Mark Hughes of Cheltenham will be part of the non-playing support team. 

Lucie’s hockey journey began when she moved with her family to this part of the world from Frimley in Surrey, where she was born, when she was about eight.

One of her two brothers is Gloucester and England rugby player Tom Beim while the other brother, James, is captain of England’s polo team, so it’s a pretty talented sporting family.

“I learned my hockey from Mary Eyre, the former England international, when I was at Charlton Park,” Lucie said. “I enjoyed it and I had an aptitude for it.”

As teachers go, they don’t come much better than the late Mary Eyre who scored 17 goals in 16 games for England. In fact Eyre was a multi-talented sportswoman because she also played doubles at Wimbledon, reaching the quarter-finals on four occasions.

Lucie, meanwhile, was still finding her feet in a sport that has played such a prominent role in her life.

“I moved on to St Edward’s and I had to work hard to get into the team,” she recalled, “because I hadn’t been playing as long as most of the other girls.”

She made her name as a defender as she grew older – she can fill any position across the back four – but in those days she was a midfielder “probably because I ran round a lot”.

And she was clearly impressing those in the know in hockey circles back then because she was selected to play at district, county and regional levels during her school days.

Soon England came knocking and she was invited for a trial when she was 14 or 15.

So how did it go?

“I got picked as first reserve for the under-16 squad which meant I didn’t go on the tour,” she said. “It was gutting.”

In fact, that knockback hit Luice hard. “It threw me for a couple of years,” she admitted.

Fortunately, she was thrown a lifeline by Wales who invited her to come and play for them.

“I went along at 18, got into the under-21 squad and continued through to the seniors,” said Lucie. “I was part of their training squad for 10 or 12 years and played my last game in 2006.”

And she enjoyed every minute of her time with Wales.

“It was a great experience,” she said. “I played in Barcelona, Azerbaijan, Poland, Lithuania, France. I met so many good people.”

She also met some top people through club hockey, a career that started at Shipton Oliffe.

In those days Shipton played on a grass pitch just a big hit from the Frogmill, about five miles outside Cheltenham.

“I’d have been 14 and I played with my mum. We lived in Hazleton and we played with Chris Aspinwall, who was an England international, and her daughter Elizabeth. I enjoyed that.”

She also enjoyed playing on grass. “It was a fantastic foundation for what the game is today,” she said.

Lucie’s hockey was getting better almost by the day, and it wasn’t long before she was playing in the national league for Colwall, where she played alongside Sarah Potter, the one-time England cricketer.

She also played for Aldridge in the West Midlands when she was a student at the University of Wolverhampton, before moving to Clifton and then Olton in West Warwickshire.

Off the field her life was pretty eventful as well, studying for a PGCE at the University of Gloucestershire as well as joining the fire service where she served as a firefighter for seven years.

But then as so often happens when everything is going well, injury struck, and it not only stopped her playing hockey, it prevented her from working in the fire service.

“I wasn’t sure what the injury was,” recalled Lucie. “I thought it may be a hernia so I had a hernia repair operation but that didn’t cure it.”

Lucie, who was 30 at the time, admits that the injury was “life-changing”.

Fortunately she had already met her soon-to-be-husband Ed Archer, who is well known in Gloucester rugby circles having spent seven years as the strength and conditioning coach at Kingsholm.

“And if it wasn’t for the injury I wouldn’t be doing the things I am now,” added Lucie.

Those ‘things’ include running a business with her husband as a training provider in the fitness industry as well as running Hockey Fever, which she launched with her good friend Amy Mills just over two years ago.

She is justifiably very proud of Hockey Fever, which aims to give everyone and anyone the chance to play the sport just for fun.

“We run social six-a-side leagues, we run re-start hockey courses, we run walking hockey,” Lucie said. “We also run Junior Hockey Fever for years 3 to 8 which gives children who are existing players game-time. We supplement what the clubs deliver.”

It’s clear from talking to Lucie that hockey has once again become a very big part of her life, so how did she rekindle her love affair with the sport?

“I started playing a bit of social hockey just for fun with some mums from Richard Pate School,” explained Lucie. “They call themselves The Puffins – they’re coached by Gloucestershire hockey legend Roy Smith – and play on Monday mornings.

“That reignited my interest and I was going back to something I love.

“Around this time Amy entered a team into the Netball Fun League. She asked me to play. I’m not a netballer but I played and it was fun. That was when Amy said to me, ‘Someone should do this for hockey’.”

The rest as they say is history because Hockey Fever is now firmly established on the Gloucestershire sporting map and Lucie couldn’t be happier!

Anyone wanting more information about Hockey Fever should visit
www.hockey-fever.co.uk